[ineffable]小组第5次作业-ISSUE221-by karen

karen_06UID: 2728072

ISSUE221 - "The chief benefit of the study of history is to break down the illusion that people in one period of time are significantly different from people who lived at any other time in history."
                 
                                                              Study of history is benefitial for society

History causes the present and influences the future. What we learn from our ancestors could help us perceive well about the world, make use of experience in the past, and avoid similar mistakes in the future. Through the studying of history we know that people in different time shares common characters. However, we could not neglect another fact that world is advancing and each dynasty owns its specific traits.

Firstly, history tells us the similarity about people in different time. History looks like a line transcending time and space from old to now, connected with similar spirit and behavior of human beings. Undoubtedly people in the Earth are fond of such qualities as beauty, honesty, wisdom, diligence and pursuing comfortable life, no matter in primary society or nowadays, from America to China. Just because of these good values people hold, the world has been developed from poor to rich, simple to colorful.

Looking back to the historical books or archives in the library, the heroes and heroees are persons that died of striving for nation's dependence, people's liberty against autarchy control, anticriticism and antiaprtism. Those who make outstanding achievements in science or technology are known as scientists, like Newton and Edison; and those artists such as Beethoven and Shubert make famous solos or symphonies are well acquainted because they bring us beautiful scene; those novelists including Hemingway are remembered for their perpetual works which create idealistic views for the world together with communication exceeding countries and comfort human's soul. These famous people represent most common people's thoughts and behaviors. It was the study of history that let us know the identity between different time periods.


Besides, we can learn the truth and secret of progress from history, in other words, the road of development has something in common throughout the history. This is obviously evident in science field, as the scientific research is constant and many programs need to be completed for decades even several generations. Because when some achievements are made, however, maybe some further subjects are encountered, thus the efforts of next generation are needed. For example, the radioactivity research is implemented by the couple of Curies and their daughter.
So
we could learn the research methods and experiment results from ancestors. This is as the same as in field of society, politics and economy. China learns the Marxism theory from German. We usually go back to the past examples for answer when we encounter economic crisis. Therefore history can be a mirror to reflect the past.

Furthermore, though each dynasty shares common things, history also tells us some different facts about different time. The world is evolving all the time, from knowledge, tools and life quality. Accordingly, people's values and social status would differ with time. In primary society, forefathers enjoy hunting and living stable in a stone house is unbelievable to them at that time. So they have no time and money to drink, thus there is no alcoholism problem compared with nowadays. Marriage decided by parents is normal in feudal society while is abolished gradually. Indian American people are used to be treated unequally; however, they fight for freedom and succeed at last. Each time has its own circumstance and even problems, which asks us to deal with contemporary problems critically. Through the comparison and analysis along the history, we can get to know about how the world develop step by step, what kind of problems exist accordingly, and what methods could be taken. Moreover, we might predict what kind of affairs would appear in the future.


In conclusion, history is not separated with present people. On the contrary, it shows us some similar phenomenon and facts about people and society; it also tells some different stories within different time, which demonstrate different ways of thoughts.